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Nevill

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Esquilax said:
Revealing the Abbess' past would make for a suitably dramatic introduction that could lead to the Emei getting kicked out of the tournament.
I'm sure that would be a smart thing to do, removing Abbess from her position of leadership and creating a power vacuum inside the sect, now that we had specifically sent Cao'er to Emei for safety.

Esquilax said:
With tensions at an all-time high due to our scandalous but entirely truthful revelations, we then challenge all the disciples of all the sects to fight us at once, in order to "make things fair", since we're a fair guy for telling the truth about Miecao.
:notsureifserious:
Esquilax said:
Coming in openly and losing like a little bitch won't fool the cleverer observers here.
The whole plan relies on everyone not knowing whether our identity is real, and if it is, what to make out of it.
 
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Esquilax

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I'm sure that would be a smart thing to do, removing Abbess from her position of leadership and creating a power vacuum inside the sect, now that we had specifically sent Cao'er to Emei for safety.

I'm not saying the plan doesn't have downsides. You're not addressing the overall logic of my plan and how it would work in the tournament itself. Okay, maybe there are some things to work out, but as an overall plan, I think it's pretty good.

Yeah, it's a shitty thing to do, but perhaps we don't even have to bother with throwing the Abbess under the bus to begin with. Still, coming in openly and challenging everybody to fight us so that we can figure out their style seems like a pretty good bet. Sure, there are risks, but we'd learn far more about our opposition than they would about us in such conditions. High Speech skills and improved PER ensure that Jing is one hell of a shit-talker.

Also, we can pull this little bit out:

“None of the leaders of the sect are on the committee, and we do not decide who to invite. They are made up of senior disciples from all Eight Sects. Still, they had not told us of their intentions to invite the disciple of the Southern Maniac. This is not usual.”

"So, are you little bitches going to hide under your Master's skirt, are are you going to come at me? Don't issue a challenge and hide like that: I came here on my own. Be careful what you wish for. But hey, I'll make things fair: all of you, against me. That should even the odds a bit."

A wandering, anonymous martial artist won't be able to do something like this, because he's a nobody. People hate Zhang, but people also hate Floyd Mayweather and he makes $40 mil a fight. I'm just saying, there's an upside to playing the bad guy, and we should be aware of that.

Going in anonymously means that we're a scrub who has to fight multiple times and work his way up the ranks. This risks us getting noticed by the sect bigwigs, and it also risks having people slowly piece together our style over multiple fights. If you go in as Zhang's apprentice and leverage that bad reputation, you can make people act emotionally, then end up learning much more about them than they would about you.

Besides, treave, since we are a fellow at Luoying Manor, could we not simply stay there and avoid the possibility of butthurt orthodox types trying to kill us in our sleep?
 
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Nevill

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I'm not saying the plan doesn't have downsides. You're not addressing the overall logic of my plan and how it would work in the tournament itself. Okay, maybe there are some things to work out, but as an overall plan, I think it's pretty good.
Well, for once, I really wasn't sure if you aren't just messing with us. I am still not sure whether you are serious or sarcastic now.

With tensions at an all-time high due to our scandalous but entirely truthful revelations, we then challenge all the disciples of all the sects to fight us at once, in order to "make things fair", since we're a fair guy for telling the truth about Miecao.
This line leaves me completely, utterly dumbfounded. Why would they attack us at once? Why would it "make things fair", and not dishonorable? Fair for who? What does Miecao has to do with the tournament? Why would Emei be kicked out of tournament? Why would anybody but Emei care that Miecao let her granddaughter in the sect (and this is the only "truth" we know about her)?

My head hurts.
 

Esquilax

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This line leaves me completely, utterly dumbfounded. Why would they attack us at once? Why would it "make things fair", and not dishonorable? Fair for who? What does Miecao has to do with the tournament? Why would Emei be kicked out of tournament? Why would anybody but Emei care that Miecao let her granddaughter in the sect?

My head hurts.

Because it's an arrogant boast, the sort that they would expect from Master Zhang's disciple. As in, "I could kick the shit out of you one-on-one so badly that it would be a massacre, so I'm gonna take all 8 of you on to make things fair, cause I'm such a nice guy". They would care about Miecao because she's a respected figure: she's the head of one of the eight major orthodox sects. Reputation and face is extremely important to them, so revealing her indiscretions puts the spotlight on us because people love drama.

We can use that spotlight to issue a challenge in which we'd take everyone on at once. The purpose of this wouldn't be to win, but rather to figure out everybody's style while giving away minimal clues about our own.
 

Baltika9

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You are right, if we're going for 1A, it only makes sense for us to go in guns blazing, and make this competition into our show of force. Honestly, coming in here and obliterating all the asses will be great for the intimidation factor when we challenge them in their schools later ("Oh shit, it's him!"), plus it gives us a hook to get the more impulsive ones to fight us later.
But it still leaves all of our techniques open to analysis by the other competitors now that they know who we are, as opposed to some heads of schools getting some fleeting hints as to who our real teacher was via the Shouwang Claws (which we won't be demonstrating for long at all since the plan for 1B is to throw the fight in the first couple of rounds; they can have fun tracing us in the middle of a battle-royale). I say we just use our basic fisticuffs and the Dragon Palm move the beggar showed us. Also, everyone is far less likely to pay close attention to us if we're just an unknown upstart than Zhang's apprentice.
If news gets out that the Abbess of Emei is raising her granddaughters on the mountain, it would be a great scandal for the sect; she would be seen as partial and unfit to lead. Besides, even if you didn’t tell her the truth now, she would definitely recognize you during the tournament. You doubt you could hide from the Abbess.

Going into the competition anonymously puts us and Miecao on an equal playing field. We know something dangerous about her, she knows something dangerous about us. However, if we go into the competition as Zhang's apprentice, suddenly that puts her on the defensive and the truth sets us free. She cares about her reputation, but being crafty unorthodox types, we don't care about ours.
While I like the general idea, the Abbess and her sect are a far too valuable as allies and too dangerous as enemies to pull a stunt like this. Mind who she was and still is, she's one tough old lady ("My grandma hits harder than you!" This one actually does.) Plus, this isn't who Jing is, he doesn't fuck over people who confide in him like this, this is Cao'er's grandmother and Yao's pretty-much-but-not-really wife.
And she actually bothered to teach us something, in her own way, so that makes her a Sis as well, so no, I can't sign up for that.

There's also the social aspect: if we go in as Zhang's apprentice, I'm pretty sure everyone will treat us like they treated him at Yuhua hall, i.e. "Stay the fuck away from him or you'll die. Seriously." If we go in as an affable nobody, well, that makes things a lot easier: we can talk, socialize and make all the friends we want and can, friends are good all the time, we can bait some bits and pieces of information from our marks too, get a feel for their character, find out who's easily goaded and who's not.

But I totally agree with you that no one will believe Zhang's apprentice lost like a little punk, the school heads will call our bluff.
 

Nevill

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Esquilax said:
They would care about Miecao because she's a respected figure: she's the head of one of the eight major orthodox sects. Reputation and face is extremely important to them, so revealing her indiscretions puts the spotlight on us because DRAMA!!!
Drama for Emei, right. Orthodox sects aren't one big happy family. What troubles one of them does not concern the others.

I understand that the silver lining is "to fight all eight disciples at once", but I do not understand how you would lead them to do so. Granted, it can be done, and thus this part in not what I have a problem with. What I don't understand is why. We'll be overrun in seconds. It is just pointless.

Unless you want to go "Chaos Undivided" on them and slaughter them all. If you are able to, that is.

Baltika9 said:
You are right, if we're going for 1A, it only makes sense for us to go in guns blazing, and make this competition into our show of force. Honestly, coming in here and obliterating all the asses will be great for the intimidation factor when we challenge them in their schools later ("Oh shit, it'shim!"), plus it gives us a hook to get the more impulsive ones to fight us later.
Must... resist... the urge... to flop. Seriously, I take back that comment about reverse psychology. Just stop it.

Baltika9 said:
But I totally agree with you that no one will believe Zhang's apprentice lost like a little punk, the school heads will call our bluff.
All right. So what exactly would they think was our goal?

If they won't believe Zhang's apprentice lost, it'll make us an imposter. We are pretty much back to incognito identity. What's wrong with that?

Everyone knows Zhang is a badass. Nobody knows if Zhang can actually teach people. I wouldn't say nobody will be fooled.
 
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Baltika9

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Double Identities: I think the A/B choice gives us a great opportunity to retain the spirit of our original plan (learn more about our opponents while making others doubt our ability and/or identity) while improving it. As I mentioned before, the gist of it is that we will go around telling everyone we are the Great Apprentice of the Southern Maniac, we are here to lay the smackdown, why not take bets on me, etc. But instead of intimidating anybody, we will be relatively flighty and taunting, easy-going and delighting in the ban on fights outside the tournament. Given our age as well, it will be very easy to make many people think that Jing is an imposter who is relying on this ban to just swill a few drinks, and probably does not even have an invitation, etc.

Next step, we will enter the competition with a false name, and proceed as we had originally planned; win a couple of battles without showing off many of our abilities or true skill, and then lose. This was always what we were going to do, right? Except now, our opponents will be even more pissed or disdainful, allowing people to think that the matches we win are upsets predicated on arrogance. So, again, what we are doing is making the process smoother.

The result: depending on what rumours they hear, our future challengers, when they meet us, will think: (1) this boy is an imposter and useless in the tournament; (2) this boy may really be the apprentice but he is useless in the tournament; (3) this boy fought in the tournament and didn't do very well, but we're not sure if he's got much to do with the rumours about the apprentice; and so forth. Certainly some might suspect there is more to us than we seem, but that will happen anyway with our original plan - it's inevitable when the Southern Maniac is concerned. The great advantage to this additional subterfuge is this: in the original, we just need to beat a couple of them and everyone else will buckle up. In this version, even when we beat two or three, there will be an even greater conflagration of rumours: did Xu Jing beat them, or the false name we gave at the tournament? Was it the imposter or the real apprentice? Who is who? Who is the one standing in front of me? This will extend our advantage and give us much greater flexibility.
"Complex plans often go wrong" is a general adage, but you don't trust general adages when there are specific factors in your situation telling you otherwise. As I argued, people know so little about us, our apprenticeship, our name, our face, our skills, etc. - that parading around puffing ourselves up as Super Killer Zhang Jue Junior actually further blurs our true identity. "Oh, that guy, he's a hack" + "Who actually is he, this or that?" is much more 'incognito' than "Oh, here's a strange guy who refuses to tell anyone who he is." And once there is sufficient confusion, even leaking small bits of information by mistake simply adds to the confusion and mitigates the damage, whereas if we are dependent upon nobody knowing about us, those mistakes add up.

And yes, if everyone has to know that it was Zhang's apprentice that just defeated them, then our incognito plan will only last till, the first or second of the Eight. That's still helpful for the tournament, but I think my plan will last us longer.
I don't think it will, honestly. Sure, we can cause a lot of drama and confusion in the tournament proper, yes, but the tournament doesn't matter to us at all. What matters is Zhang's challenge, and all of our needless theatrics will fall apart completely by the time the third or fourth challenge will be done. By that time, if there was any confusion as to whether or not we are Xu Jing, The Maniac's Apprentice (yes, those victories have to from our name), they will be completely gone once we start rolling up to their schools and beating their asses down. World will spread that, yeah, Xu Jing is rolling around the nation to challenge the Eight Students, he's about yay tall and has black-and-white hair. We have no long-term secrecy options here, in either event I give it about three to four schools until our secret is out.
The difference is that your option will have our first marks underestimate us, but will be mitigated by them having payed closer attention to us in the tournament, or them being slightly more on guard because of an unknown challenger who fights as they haven't ever seen anyone else fight, but we will have the huge advantage in information over them.
As for "the simplest plans are the best," people know Zhang's techniques and will recognize us by them if we fight openly, and those are the only techniques we can use if we want to keep our own style a secret weapon, hence the Masters will call our bluff and know we are holding back.

Honestly, I'd much shadow through this and not let the marks even suspect we were here, that gives us the drop on them in information, it's a much simpler and more flexible plan less likely to go awry through outside meddling (who can recognize us here? The Emei had gave us her word to keep her mouth shut, we have blackmail on her too so she'll follow it; Yunzi may be the Shadow Wolf, but even then I doubt she'll call us out like that; And the Songfeng school, but we changed so much, in appearance and combat style, that they won't even recognize us, unless we fight for too long), like having the people we taunt at the bars gang up on us and us having to actually fight back or show off our awesome acrobatics, both of which will make the competition suspicious.
 

Nevill

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Baltika9 said:
We have no long-term secrecy options here, in either event I give it about three to four schools until our secret is out.
I'd say four schools are fine. We can take out Emei and Qingcheng separately. That leaves two to deal with. Not bad odds.

Baltika9 said:
As for "the simplest plans are the best," people know Zhang's techniques and will recognize us by them if we fight openly, and those are the onlytechniques we can use if we want to keep our own style a secret weapon, hence the Masters will call our bluff and know we are holding back.
Using Zhang's techniques pretty much rules out the question of our identity. There would be no doubt as to who we really are. Which is the whole point. You are coming up with counter-arguments that do not address the plan that is proposed.

The Masters will know that either we are holding back OR we don't know squat. Either way, we do not give information away while trying to collect as much as we are able to.
 
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Baltika9

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Baltika9 said:
We have no long-term secrecy options here, in either event I give it about three to four schools until our secret is out.
I'd say four schools are fine. We can take out Emei and Qingcheng separately. That leaves two to deal with. Not bad odds.
No, we can't take them on separately, we have one year for all eight schools. And I'm giving them three to four schools to catch up to our act no matter what we do here, speed of travel and size of China considered. Like I said, it seems like needless theatrics to me.

If we participate in the tournament openly, once we roll up to their schools, our marks will automatically think, "Okay, Master said this is Zhang's student and he's been holding back at the tournament. I know some of his techniques, and he knows some of mine. I should be careful." as opposed to, "Who's this joker? How does he know my techniques? I never saw anyone fight like this." Provided we drop out in the first few matches, of course.
 

Nevill

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Baltika9 said:
If we participate in the tournament openly, once we roll up to their schools, our marks will automatically think, "Okay, Master said this is Zhang's student and he's been holding back at the tournament. I know some of his techniques, and he knows some of mine. I should be careful." as opposed to, "Who's this joker? How does he know my techniques? I never saw anyone fight like this."
You are counting on that they won't recognize us in their schools because we'll have a mask on during the tournament? Really?

Ok. Let's suppose so.

Initially the point of participating incognito and losing promptly was to make our enemies underestimate us. If they won't recognize us, they won't be able to make a connection between Xu Jing's persona and our abysmal performance at the tournament. There would be nothing to underestimate, we would just be the Maniac's Apprentice coming out of the woods.

Or are you discarding that part of the plan?

Baltika9 said:
"Okay, Master said this is Zhang's student and he's been holding back at the tournament. I know some of his techniques, and he knows some of mine. I should be careful."
And why not spin it like this? "Okay, Master said this is Zhang's student and he's been holding back at the tournament. I know him, he claimed to be Xu Jing, but registered under another name. He didn't really show us anything special. Maybe he is just a vagabond trying to speculate on the Great Pugilist's name."

Baltika9 said:
No, we can't take them on separately, we have one year for all eight schools.
Yes we can. You can kill Lingshu over the Killer Physician's price. Then reveal your name. You can challenge Yifeng (if she is indeed your mark) to a private friendly match right now and overcome her easily. Then, half a year later, claim that you fought her and won. She is too honest to deny that. This will satisfy your master's conditions.

These options will make Jing into one hell of a cold SOB (no worse than blackmailing the Abbess, though), but they are on the table.
 
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Baltika9

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Baltika9 said:
If we participate in the tournament openly, once we roll up to their schools, our marks will automatically think, "Okay, Master said this is Zhang's student and he's been holding back at the tournament. I know some of his techniques, and he knows some of mine. I should be careful." as opposed to, "Who's this joker? How does he know my techniques? I never saw anyone fight like this."
You are counting on that they won't recognize us in their schools because we'll have a mask on during the tournament? Really?
No, they won't recognize us because we are one mediocre, if affable, fighter in the midst of many other ambitious competitors. If we drop out early, most of them will probably even forget all about us to focus on more pressing concerns, like winning the tournament.
Initially the point of participating incognito and losing promptly was to make our enemies underestimate us. If they won't recognize us, they won't be able to make a connection between Xu Jing's persona and our abysmal performance at the tournament. There would be nothing to underestimate, we would just be the Maniac's Apprentice coming out of the woods.

Or are you discarding that part of the plan?
There is no point in going under another name to make enemies underestimate Xu Jing. Going incognito is to allow us to observe them without them observing us. That's about it. Like Esquilax said earlier with his "flow of information" speech, the fight will be much more in our favor if our opponents know nothing about us and we know nothing about them. Us knowing just the general outline of their styles and them not knowing the first thing of ours is just better. Our style is absolutely unique, their styles aren't.
Baltika9 said:
"Okay, Master said this is Zhang's student and he's been holding back at the tournament. I know some of his techniques, and he knows some of mine. I should be careful."
And why not spin it like this? "Okay, Master said this is Zhang's student and he's been holding back at the tournament. I know him, he claimed to be Xu Jing, but registered under another name. He didn't really show us anything special. Maybe he is just a vagabond trying to speculate on the Great Pugilist's name."
Students generally take their Master seriously, unless we're talking about some rebellious puckish rogues with authority issues (*cough* I'm not pointing any fingers here). If their Master tells them "yeah, he's Zhang's student and he's holding back," they'll most likely believe him. Simple as that and that's why I'm sticking to the simple 1B plan.
 

Tigranes

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Whoa, we are going off the deep end. I'm on the phone but ill give a proper post soon. But surely esquilax we aren't going to screw over the abbess like that, totally contrary to character and I don't think a sure payoff anyway. As for baltika I am happy to consider anonymity over my double identity plan but your point about subterfuge not lasting 3-4 challenges is even morr valid for anonymity... Same with techniques at tournament. What's the white wolf going to fight with? My plan is virtually same as anonymitybplan in that regard - keep low, look mediocre, lose after a couple. The point isn't to throw off subterfuge at tournament! Point is to increase confusion by entering as John doe after we boasted we were zhangs apprentice... Then lose after a coupl e of fights lamely. It estbalishes us as a useless fraud for all watching.
 

Esquilax

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Whoa, we are going off the deep end. I'm on the phone but ill give a proper post soon. But surely esquilax we aren't going to screw over the abbess like that, totally contrary to character and I don't think a sure payoff anyway. As for baltika I am happy to consider anonymity over my double identity plan but your point about subterfuge not lasting 3-4 challenges is even morr valid for anonymity... Same with techniques at tournament. What's the white wolf going to fight with? My plan is virtually same as anonymitybplan in that regard - keep low, look mediocre, lose after a couple. The point isn't to throw off subterfuge at tournament! Point is to increase confusion by entering as John doe after we boasted we were zhangs apprentice... Then lose after a coupl e of fights lamely. It estbalishes us as a useless fraud for all watching.

I actually didn't see your post when I wrote my own. I was busy most of yesterday and just skipped the page that your proposal was on. I was throwing ideas out there, not necessarily something I wanted to follow to the letter. But yeah, throwing the Abbess under the bus is a terrible idea. Anyways, I like your idea, will think about it and vote soon.

As for the point Baltika9 made about anonymity not lasting very long, after 3-4 challenges, our style will also evolve. I'm sure that we'll learn new techniques on the fly through the various school challenges we have.

Anyways, after reading the plan Tigranes proposed again, I have to say that I think it's great. This will be one hell of a fraud if we manage to pull it off. The one thing that makes it dangerous is that there are probably a lot of hot-headed disciples that want to take us out, and we might be in a position that we have to reveal our real skills, whether we like it or not. But nevertheless, posing as a charlatan out to cash in on the Southern Maniac's rep is a fucking great idea. Going with the Tigranes plan.

I IV A
 
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Nevill

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Baltika9 said:
There is no point in going under another name to make enemies underestimate Xu Jing.
I was under the impression it mattered to you:
We go to the tournament and throw our fights, our real objective is to defeat the Orthodox students in their own schools, not the tournament, so we'll use the tournament to underplay our strengths and make ourselves look cocky and inferior to them, at the same time we'll study their techniques and strengths and when the time comes for the real challenges, we will use our full arsenal. Simple, but it works.
Why bother with underplaying your strenghts if they won't even recognize you?

Baltika9 said:
Going incognito is to allow us to observe them without them observing us. That's about it. Like Esquilax said earlier with his "flow of information" speech, the fight will be much more in our favor if our opponents know nothing about us and we know nothing about them. Us knowing just the general outline of their styles and them not knowing the first thing of ours is just better. Our style is absolutely unique, their styles aren't.
This is what our plan is about, too.

This is getting tiring. Let's just cast our votes and be done with it.
 

Baltika9

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As for the point Baltika9 made about anonymity not lasting very long, after 3-4 challenges, our style will also evolve. I'm sure that we'll learn new techniques on the fly through the various school challenges we have.
That's a given no matter what we do, I'd say, and will keep us ahead of the competition. While they'll be preparing for yesterday's moves, we'll be hitting them with newer and more improved techniques. Doesn't change our overall style, though, we still have the same basics.
We go to the tournament and throw our fights, our real objective is to defeat the Orthodox students in their own schools, not the tournament, so we'll use the tournament to underplay our strengths and make ourselves look cocky and inferior to them, at the same time we'll study their techniques and strengths and when the time comes for the real challenges, we will use our full arsenal. Simple, but it works.
I've switched to this one a long time ago. As for false names, I meant that if we're going under an alias, it will do nothing to Xu Jing's name itself, since it won't be the one failing/excelling.
Edit:
I'm on the phone but ill give a proper post soon. But surely esquilax we aren't going to screw over the abbess like that, totally contrary to character and I don't think a sure payoff anyway.
That's what I said.
 

Nevill

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Baltika9 said:
As for false names, I meant that if we're going under an alias, it will do nothing to Xu Jing's name itself, since it won't be the one failing/excelling.
The name is linked to our persona, who would also introduce himself as Xu Jing. There will be uncertainty as to which is the real one, and whether they really refer to the same man.
 

Baltika9

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And all the uncertainties will be dispelled once we start kicking ass for good, in the end they'll identify what we look like, how we fight and understand that there's only one apprentice and no matter what he calls himself, his style is this and this is what they need to do to defeat it.
 

Jester

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hmm or mby we use everything except wolf step and mad claw? We have dragon palm with is beggar tech, self sword tech, general sword/fist style and new tech of mad one he didnt test yet. This mix is quite confusing. Tiger is quite crafty guy so mby even something new during tournament. This mix will make us look like part of biggest sect for most people.
 

Nevill

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...We should have really let our double handle this.

Hey, it is still not too late to try and find one.
 

Tigranes

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Look, we're getting wayyyyy into the quagmire so let's simplify this. We currently have two reasonable proposals: stay as anonymous as possible (xB), and double identities for maximum confusion (xA).

The biggest point is that there is no difference between the two plans when it comes to how we fight in the tournament, and how much observers and opponents find out about our fighting styles. In both plans we avoid as much as possible our signature moves or Zhang's moves, and bow out after a couple of fights. So there's no point arguing about that part - it's the same!

The key difference that we should vote on is whether a stranger who wants to keep a low profile and reveals nothing and has a clearly false name, or a buffoonish charlatan who has enjoyed bigging himself up as Zhang Jue's apprentice who turns out to have lied about his name and seems to fight rather poorly - the difference is which one will we enjoy more, which one will help us more with our challenges to come, which one will lend to Jing's talents? I think the latter, obviously, but that's what we should be focusing on. Baltika9 you keep returning again and again to blowing our cover in the tournament but that part of the plan is the same.
 

Tigranes

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Smashing Axe: I, II (> III > IV), A
ScubaV: II, IV, B
TOME: I, III (> II), B
ERYFKRAD: II, IV, x
XenomorphII: II, III, A
Zero Credibility: II, I, B
Kashmir Slippers: I, IV, B
Baltika: I, IV, B
Azira: I, IV, B
Tigranes: I, IV, A
Nevill: I, IV, A
Bloodshifter: II, IV, A
Ifeex: I, II, A
Stygian Lurker: I, IV, B
Esquilax: I, IV, A

I: 11
II: 7
III: 2
IV: 10

A: 7
B: 7

Tell me if I counted wrong.
 

Baltika9

Arcane
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Messages
9,611
The key difference that we should vote on is whether a stranger who wants to keep a low profile and reveals nothing and has a clearly false name, or a buffoonish charlatan who has enjoyed bigging himself up as Zhang Jue's apprentice who turns out to have lied about his name and seems to fight rather poorly - the difference is which one will we enjoy more, which one will help us more with our challenges to come, which one will lend to Jing's talents? I think the latter, obviously, but that's what we should be focusing on. Baltika9 you keep returning again and again to blowing our cover in the tournament but that part of the plan is the same.
I'm not saying that either of them automatically blow our cover, it's all up to us in how we handle it, I'm saying that if we identify ourselves as Zhang's apprentice everyone will automatically pay much more attention to us than they otherwise would, no matter how well or badly we fight. If they're paying closer attention to us, that means they'll catch hints and glances of an extremely unorthodox and brutal training in us, that will make the Masters believe we truly are his apprentice and are just bluffing. Also, this means that the other contestants will be very curious about us and will come around to find out more about us, one way or another. We're not the only sneak around here. If we identify ourselves as Zhang's apprentice, well, people will just keep away from us and we won't be able to socialize as much, or at all. Once we "reveal" ourselves as a fraud, they will straight-up avoid us and treat us with scorn. That limits our information-gathering options.

And there's nothing preventing us from being a well-mannered and friendly Martial Artist in 1B and utilize Jing's social skills to their full extend to learn more about our marks through socialization, rumors and talking to them.
B. You conceal your identity when about town, taking on the persona of a young merchant’s son interested in martial arts. Better safe than sorry; you prefer to put as many layers between yourself and any lurking elements in the competition if possible.
Nothing says we're a stand-offish douche in here. Jing is a smart guy, give him the chance and he'll use his social graces to their full effect.
 
Last edited:

treave

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 6, 2008
Messages
11,370
Codex 2012
Until you demonstrate otherwise, people will think of you as an extension of your master and the principles that he is perceived to hold. Though as Jing has demonstrated there are stupid people always eager to give a maniac a chance.

Also, perhaps you guys might feel a bit too strongly about the pressing need for keeping your techniques secret in order to win your challenges.

...Also, why is everyone assuming you only need to beat eight people? :lol:
 

Baltika9

Arcane
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Messages
9,611
Well, you said there were eight top students from each of the eight great schools that we had to defeat. Or are you talking about the current tournament?
 

treave

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 6, 2008
Messages
11,370
Codex 2012
Zhang didn't specifically say there were eight top students. He said the best of your generation from the Eight Sects. Doesn't automatically mean there's only one undisputed champion from each school.
 

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